DS is 22 and has come back to live at home after uni as he was struggling with loneliness, depression and drinking alone to cope. His friends had all left but he stayed as he had a job in essential retail. He eventually left his course midway through the 2nd year and came home, transferring to a local store for his job. It’s only 12 hrs a week and the only time he leaves the house.
We encourage him to come out on bike rides, lunches etc and he will go to watch football with his dad but the one time I finally persuaded him to try a sports group last week, he said they were much better than him and wouldn’t go back.
He has stammered all his life and the blocks of speech therapy over the years have made him feel ashamed, and a failure. He’s is in a very low place, low self-esteem, no confidence. He drinks every day in his room, cans and whiskey until he vomits/passes out.
18 months ago a friend suggested antidepressants so he went on Sertraline which helped him hugely but gave him priapism so he stopped taking it as he thought he could maintain the improvement in mood and anxiety. Since then he has slipped back to being lower than I could ever have imagined. He has had a warning about lateness at work (he was passed out drunk the night before and overslept), and reading between the lines I think work would happily let him go.
This isn’t good news as the walk there and back, seems to help a little. We are doing our best to support him, listening on the rare times he speaks with us and checking in with him (he's reclusive in his room). I’ve a found a raft of resources, researched more suitable anti-depressants, one to one mental health coaching, stammering peer support, links to accessible training courses, employment opportunities, counsellors, mentoring, but he won’t engage with any of it. He’s in too low a place to do anything about it which is causing him to be a danger to himself, and doing himself a lot of harm.
I don’t think he’s at a point where he could be sectioned though. Historically, whenever he’s been in crisis and he needs help, he will do enough just enough to climb out of the catastrophe then go back to whatever caused it. Today I managed to get the GP surgery to offer him an appointment and encouraged him to see that he deserves to feel well again. But he refused to go and said he’ll not drink today. There’s no point in getting frustrated and angry at him as I know this isn’t his choice, but I badly want him to get well as I’m really scared about the harm he’s doing and the risk to his life.
We have a younger daughter doing her GCSE’s too so I have to balance her needs also in this. Is there anything else I can do differently? I love him so much; this is breaking my heart to see him so depressed and lonely.